From our continental correspondent – Hergé’s grave still well-tended

When he died in 1983, Tintin creator Hergé was laid to rest in the Dieweg cemetery in Uccle, which is a suburb of Brussels. As the cemetery had already been declared a national heritage in 1958, an exception had to be made for this to be arranged: normally only people with family tombs received permission to bury their deceased anymore.

Not that it makes Dieweg into Brussels’ Pêre Lachaise. As a recent report in the Flemish daily De Morgen showed, the cemetery is in a very bad state. Ivy and weeds have grown wild over the tombs, headstones have fallen and many graves are slowly but surely sinking into the ground.

(photo by and (c) Tim Dirven)

It would seem that there’s not a lot of interest for this cemetery as a record of Brussels history, despite being listed on the Belgian tourist agency’s site (where they claim the overgrowth and neglected, crumbling memorials are charming). However, at least the grave of Belgium’s greatest cartoonist still seems to be relatively well-tended.